


Seersucker and Madras

by Tammany



Series: The Sussex Downs [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Madras - Freeform, Seersucker, South Downs Cottage, Tartan, gender switch, plaid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:44:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20204200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: I meant for this to get steamy. I'm afraid it decided it didn't NEED to be steamy, because the important thing was not precisely how sex was had, but that it was had gleefully and to good effect. (shrug) I like me some smut, but I am afraid what you got was just happy fluff, with some fun with clothes porn and some fun with angelic attitudes toward gender as mere costuming effects. Kind of an accessory you wear in human form.I had so much fun with besotted, imaginative Crowley in this. But I had fun with Aziraphale, too. I thought he'd behave one way, and he raised an arch brow at me and huffed that humans were far too rigid in their attitudes.I hope you have fun. Our kiddos do.





	Seersucker and Madras

It probably wouldn’t have happened before the Apocalypse that failed. No—it definitely would not have happened. Before the Apocalypse that failed, Crowley was kept busy enough with the entire wiles and tempting gig to have limited time for many frivolous curiosities. In this case, though, he was working mischief, pitting the sixty-year-old fundamentalist conservative volunteer against the twenty-two-year-old progressive atheist volunteer in a little Oxfam south of Regent’s Park. It was the retired demon’s equivalent of fly fishing in Scotland—an amusement, but not a necessity. It kept him on his toes…and in his opinion combined good wiles and temptation skills with a virtuous lesson in humility his angel would approve of.

So he was lurking, the better to drop a seductive comment about Brexit here, and about the dangers of moral relativity there, bait for the unwary. And to provide cover, he was going through the stock of the store with a meticulous attention to detail.

Half-way through a rack of women’s clothing, he found it: tartan! An entire seam of madras and seersucker summer wear. A gaudy, cheerful madras summer dress—sleeveless with a crisscross stomacher and a mock-crossover bodice, with miles of skirt. A comparatively somber suit with a trim, narrow skirt and a boxy jacket in deep orange and plum with a thin strip of lime for liveliness. Shorts in pale pink and lavender seersucker, cut wide and breezy and comfortable. A blue on blue on white blouse cut even breezier, obviously intended to allow the breasts a pleasant airing on hot days without shocking the vicar’s wife. There was more. It was clearly the closet clean-out of some pretty, plump woman in her fifties. Crowley had the sudden conviction that she only cleared out to give herself permission to buy a fleet of similar plaid just for the fun of it—or to take a year or two off plaid to invest in festive floral prints.

He grinned, imagining her in his mind. About five-four, five-five, he thought. Blonde, or bottle-blonde. He wasn’t sure he cared which, but it suited her complexion. She burned in summer and stayed in the shade quite a lot. Her eyes were blue with inner speckles and splotches of agate brown and green… She smiled like the sun, and drank endless gin and tonics in warm weather, and nibbled on ripe peaches and grapes and juicy wedges of watermelon in a happy little cottage somewhere in the South Downs region, or perhaps Cornwall—somewhere the wretched English climate occasionally pretended to be Mediterranean. Her husband kissed her regularly, and the back garden of their cottage was filled with a swimming pool and a glorious array of comfortable lawn furniture, and many shaggy perennials…including blowsy roses that dropped petals everywhere, and smelled like honey.

Somewhere in his daydream, he knew exactly and precisely who she was, too. Or who he could dream she would be.

“Angel,” he murmured, a dopey smile firmly planted on his face, so goopy it overcame a beak of a nose and bracketed mouth and lean cheeks and high cheekbones, turning him from an Edward Gorey cartoon to an Animaniac in love, heart going sprong-sprong-sprong trying to beat right out of his chest.

He loved his angel however Aziraphale chose to manifest. But something about this little collection of cheerful, comfortable, pretty plaid, combined with the summer cottage in the south struck a chord. Crowley knew, instantly, what music would pour over the back garden from speakers in the sitting room. He knew that he’d make up for all the overdone happiness by keeping a near-military array of hip-high raised beds crammed with competition-perfect terrified veg back behind the pool house. They’d have a neighbor who kept bees, and liked chess, and played violin, and was clever, with a life-partner who was a bit more of a lad who’d go “out t’ th’ pub” with Crowley and place bets on the footie while Aziraphale solved puzzles with the violin fellow.

To his own amazement, he wanted that life. That happy, shining, seersucker-clad Angel wearing an infinite array of pretty summer sandals and fussing over her figure without ever really caring enough to change a thing. She’d be the perfect armful plus a smidge. Angel would be happy, with room after room of books and knickknacks all set out to shine in the sun from the cottage's big old casement windows.

Before he knew it, he had his arms filled with plaid. Pretty, pale pastel plaid. Burning, intense plaid like sunset on cotton. Dresses and skirts and blouses and even a seersucker two-piece that might be a short set—but might be a swimming suit, too. Crowley wasn’t sure.

“I never knew you were married, lovie,” clucked the fundamentalist volunteer as she rang him out. She eyeballed him. “You don’t look it.”

“Opposites attract,” Crowley said, even as his mind darted to re-costume himself for the South Downs. Who would he be there, with his Angel? Instantly he saw himself in trim stove-pipe legged black jeans, with a black tank shirt and an amazing Spanish peasant shirt open in front and worked with miles of black on black embroidery. His hair would be long, and braided in a tight cue at the nape of his neck, and he’d wear a ruby earring and a red and black enamel snake pendant that would just fill in the neckline of his tank. He’d keep his favorite snake belt, too. He’d look cool. Very cool. Angel would snatch him naked and jump his bones regularly, because he’d be cooler than anyone else on the South Downs…

He grinned stupidly all the way back to Aziraphale’s bookstore, and was halfway up to Aziraphale’s private rooms before it occurred to him that his angel would have no context for being presented with a metric shit-load of madras and seersucker clothing for the “wrong” gender.

He cringed, and attempted a slow, silent slink back down the stairs.

“Crowley!”

The angel’s voice came caroling up the stairway, alight with that amazing “Surprised by Joy” note that always pierced Crowley to the heart. No one could radiate such amazed happiness at his arrival as Aziraphale could—as though Crowley were a surprise cream tea bursting with clever, scrummy sandwiches and delightful little tea cakes and fresh-baked scones and pots and pots of hot, fragrant tea served in pretty china covered in charming floral patterns. Or a fist-full of completely biodegradable balloons you could set sailing into the sky without regret or concern for some ribbon-murdered duck somewhere.

“Angel,” he murmured, turning, with no way to hide his booty.

“Why, whatever have you got there?” Aziraphale asked, perking up even more than he had been. “Treasure?”

“Um…”

Yes, Angel, he thought, suddenly sad as he found himself trying to let go of the dream, and failing.

“No,” he said. “Impulse buy. Oxfam.” Then, because he had to explain it somehow, he said, shyly, “Made me think of you. Thought you might see some promise in the cloth, if nothing else. Cut it up for bow ties, maybe. Come on up and I’ll show you.”

So they went together, Crowley leading Aziraphale, into the shabby, comfortable upper room that had come to be their bedroom suite. Once there, Crowley tipped the bags out onto the bed.

The clothes shone in the filtered light from the windows—the pale seersucker; the blazing sunset madras.

“Oh!” Aziraphale tipped his head, and put out an impulsive hand, caressing the heaped clothes. “Oh. My.” Something shone in his eyes…“Tartan,” he said, voice slightly drunk and greedy.

“Um, yeah,” Crowley agreed, glad his own eyes were hidden behind his glasses, as he couldn’t help laughing a bit. Trust Angel to love him some plaid… “Like I said. Thought of you.”

“They’re…pretty.” There was something in his voice amazingly reminiscent of a five year old girl confronted with a princess dress and tiara.

“Like I said. Maybe make bow-ties of ‘em?”

Aziraphale clucked. “That would be a crime. Poor things. I wonder what they look like on? It would be easier to know what to do with them if I had some idea of how they looked on. Crowley, would you be a dear?”

Crowley squalled. “Oi! Don’t push it, angel. Not happening. Not until you find me a pile of black on black plaid. Clan MacD’Eath tartan, maybe. Call Anathema or something.”

Aziraphale clucked and huffed, and said with a surprising conviction, “Oh, no. Anathema would hate them. Nothing like goth enough for her. No—I suppose if it’s to be done I’ll just have to do it myself.” Then, with a flick of miracle energy, she changed.

“Angel,” Crowley murmured, besotted anew.

Five-four, maybe. At least ten stone, maybe as much as twelve packed nicely. Shining blond hair in a frothy, mischievous crop that left the nape of her neck bare for kisses. Without a second’s pause, she stepped out of the now too-large clothing she was in, folding each piece as she removed it. Then she began rummaging through the clothes, bottom round and tempting and forcing Crowley to fight with Queen for possession of his thoughts.

_“Oh, you gonna take me home tonight…Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round…”_

His palms itched worse than a werewolf’s at full moon. His mouth watered for firm, ripe peaches.

Aziraphale squeaked, and pulled out the first dress Crowley had seen in the Oxfam. “Oooh!” With a quick scramble she started pulling into the dress. “Hmmm. A bit small.” Crowley could see her shrink just an inch or two, losing a stone as she settled her breasts in place. “Hmph. Back-zipper. Crowley, would you be a darling and…” she gave him a beseeching glance, turning slightly to show the open zipper.

With trembling fingers the demon complied.

He had no idea why his angel looked so insanely smug after. But, then, he wasn’t looking in the mirror to see the doting expression on his face, nor was he entirely conscious of the speed of his breathing, or the anticipatory lurk of his body-language.

Aziraphale gave a spin, setting the skirts fluffing out. “Oooh.” Then he pouted. “But—no place to wear it. It’s so not-London…”

“We could spend a weekend down in the south,” Crowley found himself saying. “Cottage by the sea, or up on the downs. Swimming pool in the back. Gin and tonics on tap.”

Aziraphale considered, and smiled a greedy, happy smile. “Ideal. And I wouldn’t need to buy a stitch. Except maybe a swim suit or two.”

“Get a properly private place. Swim without stitches.”

“Naughty.” She looked at him from under lowered lashes. “You’re not reverting to demonic, are you?”

“No reverting when I never gave it up to start.”

He could almost hear this new, mischievous angel purr.

“We’ll have to get you something too.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll shop for my own, thank you,” Crowley snapped—already internally gloating, as he imagined Aziraphale’s first sight of the New South Downs Crowley in his sexy jet outfit. He even had one Spanish shirt already in his closet, a hold-over from the era of Cervantes. Black on black, with gathered sleeves and a high collar… He’d look magnificent. Snaky. Too damned cool…

His angel would love it.

“Are you sure you want to go out—well—female?”

Aziraphale turned and looked at him as though he’d asked whether the angel minded going out blonde, or on two legs, or with five fingers on each hand. “Quite. It’s just another gender, silly. Unless….” His eyes were suddenly worried. “If you don’t… If you prefer… I mean, if you’re exclusive?”

Crowley knew the best answer to that, and it wasn’t words.

Somewhere half an hour or so later they finally parted.

“Well, that’s settled, then,” Aziraphale said, grinning. “A good time was had by all. I think I’ll sort through these, pack what’s appropriate for the trip, and put the rest away properly. You go downstairs and find us that private cottage in the south with a pool I can skinny dip in without scandalizing the neighbors.”

“Yes, dear,” Crowley laughed. His angel could be a bossy little thing…

“Oh,” she said, just as he started down the stairs. “One more thing…”

“Yes?”

“If I’m going to wear this gender, it’s probably best if we just stick with ‘Angel.’ In public. All right?”

Crowley smiled to himself. “Not like I don’t call you that often as not, angel.”

“I know. But—don’t panic if I introduce myself that way. Right?”

“Anything you say, Angel,” he murmured…

And went downstairs to contact an estate agent and let it be known he was in the market for a rental—or better still, something for sale, with a pool, and lots of bookshelves, and room for raised vegetable beds, and a garage for the Bentley, and quiet neighbors who would either mind their own business—or deduce that the weird neighbors intended no harm.

And years later, when he had all that and more, he’d swear you could buy happiness at Oxfam, and help yourself by helping others.

But he never did manage to complete his temptation of the two volunteers. He was too busy being happy with his Angel, drinking G&Ts, and discussing beekeeping with one of his neighbors, and crime blogging and medical practice with the other.

And they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
